There has been all this talk of Lillard's ppg average in the playoffs being hit hard since the Pelican series when the double/triple Dame defense became mainstream. I wanted to look at his ppg averages in the playoffs before that series and since it. Before that series Dame averaged 24.67 points a game in the playoffs. From the Pelicans series on he has averaged 23.1 ppg. If we don't include the Pelicans series (which was his worst all time ppg in a playoff series - 18.5 ppg) he has averaged 25.4 ppg since then. 2014 Playoffs: HOU - 6 Games (25 PPG) SAS - 5 Games (19.8 PPG) Total Average - 23 PPG 2015 Playoffs: MEM - 5 Games (21.6 PPG) Total Average - 21.6 PPG 2016 Playoffs: LAC - 6 Games (22 PPG) GSW - 5 Games (31.8 PPG) Total Average - 26.4 PPG 2017 Playoffs: GSW - 4 GAMES - (27.7 PPG) Total Average - 27.7 PPG 2018 Playoffs: NOP - 4 games (18.5 PPG) Total Average - 18.5 PPG 2019 Playoffs: OKC - 5 Games (33ppg) DEN - 7 Games (25 PPG) GSW - 4 Games (22 PPG) Total Average - 26.8 PPG 2020 Playoffs: LAL - 4 Games (5) - 24 PPG Total Average - 24 PPG
I think you have to look at efficiency too. Not only shooting and scoring efficiency, but assist/turnover efficiency then gauge everything against the way teams defend Dame in the playoffs
^ What he said. It's always been about efficiency, not PPG. Dame has had to put up more shots than usual [in the playoffs] to get his points.
Career PER 22.4 regular season. Career PER 18.6 playoffs. I only use PER here as an accumulation of boxscore stats.
When teams play Dame 1 on 1 he dominates (see series against OKC) When teams trap and focus their entire defense around taking the ball out of his hands, he struggles and so does our team. Hopefully having Norm can help with that now.
Percentages suck imo. On top of my head Lillard has had only 2 damn good series. That was against Houston in 2014 and against OKC 2019.. The rest have been completely forgettable. He’s even had some reallllly bad ones. Memphis 2015, New Orleans 2018
not true...just more false CJ mythology in the playoffs: PER: CJ 15.8....Dame 18.6 TS%: CJ .532....Dame .548 FT Rate: CJ .191....Dame .337 assist Rate: CJ 13.2%....Dame 25.0% turnover rate: CJ 9.1%....Dame 12.5% ast rate/trn rate: CJ 1.45....Dame 2.0 winshare/48: CJ 0.56....Dame 0.94 BPM: CJ 0.9....Dame 3.5 the only thing CJ has been better at is turnovers, but that's going to be an easy accomplishment for a ball-handler who has an assist rate below 15% Dame has been better at everything while being doubled, tripled, and trapped in almost all of his playoffs games by the best perimeter defenders on the other team. CJ has been single covered by the weaker defenders. CJ has drafted off of the playoff attention Dame gets and still posts worse numbers Dame's numbers have dropped by a bigger rate than CJ's in the playoffs, but again, he's facing twice the resistance CJ faces
This will be Lillards breakout post season. With norm and cj, traps wont work like the past. I say bring your best game. Dame is gonna top it now with his help.
i agree with everything but the last sentance. Id say its more dangerous. Not just as. I think we are a better more potent team when Dame gets others involved.
You mean norm. Cj has been here the whole time and they trapped him. So, really, norm is the X factor in this whole thing.
mmm no i mean cj too. I get what your saying and your not wrong. But i think with norm it will actually also free up cj and Dame. so yes, in the past cj hasn't made that difference. But if it were just dame and powell im not sold that would make a difference either. But with cj AND Powell im thinking its much more tangible.
Please don't compare Dame and CJ in the Playoffs....just embarrassing. They are not close in terms of production or in terms of defensive attention. @Chris Craig ...typically when looking at averages, if you take out the worst (NOP), you also take out the best (OKC) and average the rest. Still, Dame is putting up very good numbers when being the total focus of the opponents defense.
I don’t think we’ll have any trouble scoring. We’ve got a lot of guys who can score. I’m very excited to see how we look.
It stands to reason that Dame’s efficiency should go down in the playoffs. It’s not as if that’s something a player can overcome. Being guarded by two is simply harder than being guarded by one. Other players’ efficiency should (in theory) go up.
I hate to jinx things, but I'm excited to see Dame play with a fully healthy Nurkic. He's only been in 9 playoff games, and was only 23 in the Pelicans sweep. I think it's going to be fun watching him make Jokic work on both ends of the court, setting high screens 30 feet from the hoop. Dame is going to have a lot of space to work with.
If we are ever going to see this team defeat the trap, this is the time it should happen. A healthy Nurk, a healthy CJ, Norm, RoCo, etc. I also think Denver is lacking good perimeter defenders.
